Bangladesh Arrests Owner of Collapsed Building That Killed 362

Rescue workers use pieces of cloth to bring down a survivor after an eight-story building housing several garment factories collapsed in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh on April 24, 2013. Photographer: A.M. Ahad/AP Photo

April 29 (Bloomberg) -- Bangladesh authorities arrested
Sohel Rana, the owner of the building where at least 362 people
were killed when the factory complex collapsed on April 24, the
biggest disaster in the country’s garment industry.

Rana was arrested in the western border town of Benapole
from where he planned to cross over into India, Jahangir Kabir
Nanak, state minister for local government, told cheering
relatives of victims at the disaster site yesterday. Rana was
flown to the capital Dhaka last evening. The police earlier
arrested executives of three garment makers housed in the Rana
Plaza building.

The disaster is at least the third reported industrial
accident in the South Asian nation since November, when 112
people died in a fire at a workshop that was producing garments
for companies including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Hundreds of
protesters demanding punishment for Rana, a member of the ruling
Awami League political party’s youth wing, blocked roads and
clashed with the police in and around Dhaka on April 27. The
army began removing rescuers from the site and started using
heavy machines to clear rubble and look for bodies.

“It is now difficult to continue the rescue operation
manually and that’s why we are going to use equipment,” said
Major General Chowdhury Hasan Suhrawardi, who also gave the
death toll, at a press conference in Dhaka yesterday. “We’re
attaching the highest importance to saving lives.”

Rescuers have pulled 2,436 people alive from the debris,
Suhrawardi said.

6,000 Employed

As many as 6,000 people were employed in facilities housed
in Rana Plaza, 24 kilometers (15 miles) northwest of Dhaka, the
Bdnews24.com website reported, without citing a source for the
information. A few shops and a bank also operated from the
building, Health Minister A.F.M. Ruhal Haque said in a briefing
on April 24.

Some factory workers laid siege to the headquarters of the
Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association in
the capital, Atiqul Islam, president of the industry group, said
by phone April 26. Garment factories in Dhaka remained shut for
a second day yesterday in the wake of the workers’ protests.
Opposition parties led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party
called for a nationwide shutdown on May 2 in solidarity with
garment workers.

One police officer and several garment workers were injured
in clashes in Savar, where the factory building collapsed,
Tahmina Begum, an assistant sub-inspector in the Savar Model
Police Station, said by phone on April 27.

Arrests Ordered

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed on April 26
ordered the arrest of the owners of five factories located in
Rana Plaza. Six people have been taken into custody in
connection with the collapse, including Rana’s wife, the
Associated Press reported yesterday. Two associates of Rana, who
helped him travel to Benapole were also arrested, Mokhlesur
Rahman, director general of the Rapid Action Battalion, an elite
law-enforcement agency, said at a press briefing yesterday.

“A complete lack of confidence in administration has
created public perception of political shelter” for Rana, Ahsan
H. Mansur, executive director of Policy Research Institute of
Bangladesh, said in a phone interview yesterday. “An arrest is
the only way to send a message to all that nobody is above the
law.”

Rana’s permit to construct the building, where clothes were
made for brands owned by Loblaw Cos. and Associated British
Foods Plc, was from the Savar Municipal Corp., a local body that
has lower building standards, and not Dhaka’s development
authority, Mannan said.

Unmet Standards

About half of Bangladesh’s garment factories don’t meet
legally-required work-safety standards, said Kalpona Akter,
executive director of the Bangladesh Center for Worker
Solidarity, a non-governmental organization founded by two
people who had worked in the garment industry as children to
promote safer factories. A factory collapse in 2005 killed 64
and injured 80 people and the November fire killed 112 workers,
according to the Clean Clothes Campaign, which seeks to improve
working conditions in the garment and sportswear industries.

Bangladesh’s labor law requires safety measures such as
fire extinguishers and easily accessible exits at factories.

“Labor-rights groups around the world have been asking,
indeed imploring, major retailers to address the grievous safety
hazards in their Bangladesh factories and the response is always
the same: vague promises and public relations dodges, while the
pile of corpses grows ever higher,” Scott Nova, executive
director of the Washington-based Worker Rights Consortium, said
in a statement.

Loblaw’s Joe Fresh and Associated British Foods’ Primark,
which said that their suppliers made garments at the collapsed
factory, both vowed to help improve working conditions in
Bangladesh.

‘Shocked, Saddened’

Joe Fresh, the clothing brand owned by Brampton, Ontario-based Loblaw, had a “small number” of items produced at the
complex, Julija Hunter, a spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed
statement. Loblaw is “saddened” by the tragedy and will work
with its vendor to see how it can help, Hunter said. Loblaw has
standards for suppliers to make sure that products are produced
in a socially responsible manner and conducts regular audits to
ensure compliance, she said.

“We hope to hear more from the authorities about the
status of this situation and we are committed to supporting
them,” she said.

One of Primark’s suppliers occupied the building’s second
floor, the company said in a statement. The budget fashion chain
said it was “shocked and saddened” by the accident and has
worked with non-governmental organizations to help improve
factory standards in Bangladesh.

Zero Tolerance

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, said its own
investigation confirmed it “had no authorized production in the
facility,” said Kevin Gardner, a spokesman for the Bentonville,
Arkansas-based company. “If we learn of any unauthorized
production, we will take appropriate action based upon our zero-tolerance policy on unauthorized subcontracting,” Gardner said.

Mohammad Ali, whose 25-year-old son remains missing, said
he heard from his son’s co-workers that they saw cracks on the
wall of the building before it collapsed and refused to go to
work. Some managers threatened not to pay their monthly salary
if they didn’t return to work, he said.

Families of the workers were crying for their loved ones,
while others went from hospital to hospital in frantic searches
for relatives. Injured workers were being carried on stretchers
into a crowded hospital emergency room. Officers have handed
over 295 bodies to relatives, according to the Savar police.

$18 Billion Industry

Surging wages and inflation in China, the largest apparel
supplier, have prompted retailers such as Wal-Mart and Hoffman
Estates, Illinois-based Sears Holdings Corp. to shift production
to Bangladesh. In response, an $18 billion manufacturing
industry has sprung up, marred by factories operated in
buildings with poor electrical wiring, an insufficient number of
exits and little firefighting equipment.

The collapsed building had developed cracks the previous
day, prompting BRAC Bank Ltd. to order its employees to vacate
the premises, said Zeeshan Kingshuk Huq, a spokesman.

Workers-rights advocates are petitioning companies to sign
a contractually enforceable memorandum that would require them
to pay Bangladesh factories enough to cover the cost of safety
improvements.

So far, New York-based PVH Corp., owner of the Tommy
Hilfiger brand, and German retailer Tchibo GmbH are the only
ones to sign the agreement, which also would require companies
to provide accurate and regularly updated lists of their
approved suppliers and subcontractors in Bangladesh. It won’t
take effect until four major retailers sign up.

Textiles contribute more than 10 percent of Bangladesh’s
gross domestic product and about 80 percent of the nation’s
exports, mainly to the U.S. and the European Union, according to
the manufacturers’ association.